The "Making Every Day A Sunday" Story

It was an ordinary day. Just finished printing 55,000 window envelopes and am headed home to eat and take a nap. I can do that whenever I want, since I am partially retired. Matter-of-fact, I don't even have to go to work if I don't want to, but then Carol and I can't take vacations, so I head to school to print or head to the gallery to do a few matting and framing jobs. Well, I'm listening to the radio in my '96 Protege (LDub's truck) with over 86K miles on it. Have a sports call-in show tuned in, listening to everyone ripping up the Phillies. Then someone calls and asks if everyone heard that Norman Sas died yesterday. OK, who is Norman Sas? Show host asks the caller the same question and I soon find out that he was the inventor of the electric football game. He based it on an electric race car game by Tudor. Ah, Yes! I had one of those games and played it for years. Used to have my friends over and we would pick our favorite team and play against each other. The green metal board was printed to look like a football field and the little plastic players would run up and down the field. No matter what your favorite team was, it was either the red guys or the yellow guys in the board game. The bottom of each player had two prongs on it that I believe were angled rigid plastic. When the board vibrated, it made the players move, allegedly. Only problem was that the players would sometimes go the wrong way or would fall over or would .......... Get the idea. Didn't matter if the players went a different direction than what you had planned. The game was still fun because back then there weren't too many other electric games that you could play. Sometimes I would paint the helmets on the players different colors, to match my favorite team at the moment. I often wondered if the race car game worked any better than the football game did. There was also a special player called the Triple Threat Quarterback that you could attach the ball (piece of foam) to and attempt to pass, punt or kick field goals. I kind of remember maybe having a complete pass one or two times in the couple of years that I had the game. Mr. Sas designed his game using the vibrating race car game as the base for the game technology. Mr. Sas invented the game in 1947, but didn't put it on the market until the following year. It eventually was manufactured and sold by the Tudor Company. I probably had my game when I was 10 or 12 years old. At first it wasn't a real big success but in 1967 Mr. Sas signed a contract with the NFL and every kid had to have one. Ask any sports fan who was growing up in the 50s, 60s, or early 70s if they remember the electric football game and I bet they can attest that it was probably the worst board game ever invented. I must agree, but I still loved my game! When video games emerged on the scene, the Madden NFL game probably sent the Tudor electric game into the attic. At times I see one at flea markets or antique shops and often wonder if that may be my game that my mother gave away. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.